Curses! Spoiled Again! (1/29 Books)

I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I noticed something peculiar in the description of one of this weeks books by an app that I will not name…

Thor #2’s content may make reference to specific DC characters. My interest is that, if true, may actually align with Doomsday Clock Issue #12 which made the reverse (vague reference to Marvel characters).

So Anthony, please include this book to your spoiling efforts and report back Tuesday night if there is anything worth sharing.

Thanks in advance.

If anyone else has a request for a spoiler from Anthony feel free to note it hear. But don’t wait until 8pm on Tuesday as I’m sure Anthony may already have completed his spoiling research for the evening (The guy has a life, you know!).

The decade of the 2010s was the first decade in which there was no DC/Marvel crossover. I want Disney to sell Marvel comics to DC comics. Unify the worlds. :crossed_fingers::upside_down_face:

I would actually prefer that, but if anything ever gets bought it will be Disney buying WB/DC…I thinks the heads of Disney literally want to buy then rule the world.

I say keep Marvel and DC separate… don’t need the cheesy DC characters ruining what good we get from Marvel Characters when it comes to movies and such.

@agentpoyo…I don’t want the MCU to be sold by Disney, just the comic book printing side of things. DC puts out such a better product than Marvel does currently, imo. There are so many poorly written and drawn Marvel titles right now, I feel like Jim Lee and the boys and girls at DC comics would produce better stories for the Marvel characters. M2c. And having said that, I am a Marvel guy. I don’t follow much DC outside of the Bat family.

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wb probably wouldn’t be willing to part with the film rights for dc, and would likely be asking for a huge premium for anyone wanting to buy the comics rights for dc. (possibly with some oversite caveats to protect their film rights remaining profitable)

marvel/disney would be the only ones who could/would consider that purchase, and without the film rights dc simply isn’t worth that much…and disney likely knows it.

disney wouldn’t sell marvel comics for a similar reason…the asking price would be so high (and without film rights) that realistically only wb would consider it…but they would likewise know that it isn’t worth it.

if disney were going to target any franchise to purchase…it wouldn’t be dc…it would be pokemon…if they could afford it…

on the spoiler side…maybe check to see if weapon plus ww4 has ron jeremy…I mean weapon xxx making an appearance.

Disney kind of already has sold the rights to their Marvel comic characters, to some degree. IDW now prints books and titles featuring Marvel characters.

they licensed the usage for some unknown weird reason to idw…very very different from selling…(it does seem likely with moon girl, and squirrel girl no longer being a thing that marvel is letting IDW make the “kid friendly” versions of their comics…same with star wars)

licensing comes with a ton of rules and oversight, and generally only lasts for a pre set amount of time…its probably something close to the disney/sony deal to use spider-man in the MCU…some kind of profit sharing and IDW pays for the content creation costs. (IDW also makes star wars comics…as does marvel)

it marvel sold the rights to those characters, they wouldn’t be useable by marvel, so there wouldn’t be avengers comics by both IDW and marvel (same with spider man, and a ton of others…). IDW may be one of the bigger small publishers…but they’d need something like mark cuban (or more likely jeff bezos) to buy them to be able to afford buying marvel (even just the comics part)

same sorts of things happen with crossovers (power rangers/tmnt, etc.) in comics…it also generally means that nothing that happens in the crossover has any effect on anything that happens in either property outside the crossover.

actually selling the rights looks more like evil ernie and chastity being owned by chaos, so brian pullido can’t use them in coffin comics despite having created them, and having tried to buy back the rights a few times (supposedly chaos won’t sell them)…or rob liefeld and how he no longer owns youngblood.

probably the most complicated, convoluted example of this is robotech vs. macross…

if you want dc to “buy” marvel in the same way IDW “bought” marvel…it would maybe result in a crossover, but marvel comics would continue as is…so there wouldn’t be any unifying of worlds outside the crossover.

hardin/palmiotti/conner supposedly pitched a deadpool/harley crossover to both marvel and dc several years ago…and while both marvel and dc supposedly agreed it would make a ton of money…they both supposedly also said that it would never happen.

Thoughtful response, @pika. You did not understand my statement though. I said that Marvel has, to some degree, kind of already sold the rights to it’s characters. I wrote that assuming that is was clear that I was referring to the licensing agreement between Marvel and IDW. The fact remains though, that licensing out your IP to a competitor is essentially, and literally, selling the rights to use your characters. It’s semantics. I thought this was implied. I apologize if it was not straight forward.

How profitable do you think Marvel publishing is for Disney? And if it is profitable, why did they start licensing it out to a competitor? If you take a Moongirl book, it sells maybe 10’000 copies per issue. 10000 x $4 (cover price) = $40G. That’s at retail. Wholesale, I believe, is $1.50 per book for Marvel. 10000 copies x $1.50 = $15G. $15G profit, per issue. Then they have to pay a months salary to the execs, the writer, artist, colourist, editor, janitor, parking guy…I’ll bet Marvel is in the red for a lot of their books. This, to me, is why they considered, and executed, selling the licencing of their characters to IDW. To stop some of the bleeding. Marvel Comics, the printed book side of the company, is not making hand over fist cash. It’s probably costing Disney money to keep it going. I don’t think you need a billion dollars to buy the publishing or licensing rights to Marvel characters. Hell, IDW has already done it, to a degree, without Bezos or Cuban.

I do not want that scenario, at all. I don’t want DC to license Marvel characters. I want DC characters and Marvel characters under one roof, controlled creatively by one publisher. And I’d prefer that publisher to be DC, as I feel they are putting out a better overall quality product. DC should stick to producing all the hero books, and Disney should stick to the live action stuff. Imo.

Just want to point out the last issue of Moon Girl (47) was about 5000 in sales per comichron. So half those numbers. Surprised it lasted as long as it did. It was a good book though. I pick up back issues when I see them for $1 in NM.

One other thing. DC and Marvel are competitors. If you merge them you’ll get somewhat of a monopoly…and if they get greedy and start pumping out silly crossover books and raise prices across the board…could mean the end of the comic book as we know it today…would definitely change the landscape.

Careful what you wish for.

1.50 is close to what comic shops pay diamond…publishers get less than half that from diamond. so lets say .75 (which is probably still way too high) .75 x 5k…3.75k

lets say 20 pages of art x 200 a page so 4k, say…1000 for cover (less for less recognized names…but potentially much much more for a big name…), and not really sure but say 1k for writer (probably very low)…thats 6k

3.75k net sales - 6k costs for a loss of 2.5k. even selling 10k you’d end up with 7.5k for a slim profit of 1.5k…and thats with costs being estimated low…and profits high. art costs could be much higher if dc/marvel continued to own the originals…vs the artists keep them and can sell them (unless the originals were all digital).

theres other profit factors to consider like the ads, digital sales, tpb sales and such, but also other costs like printing (and over printing) marketing, editing, colors, comps, and other such things too.

looking at just sales numbers its easy to think comic shops get the best end of the deal…but they don’t. 5k printed doesn’t mean shops will sell 5k (hence the dollar bins). overall diamond has by far the best end of the deal (and a monopoly).

so even looking at it as eating a loss to build a fan base may not hold up if the numbers don’t show signs of sustained growth.

I think generally comics (retail…self publishing is a very different beast) aren’t really profitable at all unless they sell at least 20k (marvel/dc) which is why a lot of titles that sell less get cancelled…with dc’s current level of sales this is why a lot of the rumors about dc getting sold off etc. or marvel getting sold off etc. start gaining traction…companies need to not just meet profit expectations…but exceed them…so losses become very unattractive…as do slim profits.

indies can get away with selling less by selling the movie/tv rights, or by paying writer artist solely by profits of the book, etc. I think I once heard image’s deal was something like they keep all the money from the 1st 3k copies sold (to cover their costs)…but after that its a generous split favoring the creators. not a clue how IDW, dynamite, boom, and aspen handle things. but there probably a very very big reason why indies get optioned very very early (studios getting in early for cheap and publishers taking less to stay afloat)

for disney they seem to have forseen that they need to keep the comics division to ensure that they have new characters to pull from for the mcu (unlike comics…actors get old, pass away, etc.). however allowing IDW to license kid friendly comics still probably cost IDW (probably marvel gets some kind of x per issue, or x% of net sales)…and given how low their sales have been…I don’t really see them wanting to continue it beyond whatever point they can opt out…but who knows what the deal was, maybe marvel gave them a super deal so that they’d maintain a foot in the door for the kids market without having to lose money…

wb may not see it the same as most of their most profitable movies are not ones that connect to each other like the mcu (dark knight trilogy, joker, etc. vs aquaman, wonder woman, shazam…) so they can simply reboot batman ad nauseum…even shazam is only just barely connected…and wonder woman and aquaman could easily stand on their own. they do however need to “protect” their movies from stuff like batman being used in porn etc. once they sell…even if its just comics publishing…

it isn’t the being able to get the license to use a character(s) that will cost…its the cost of not having to adhere to strict caveats and restrictions…something that would likely only be possible through a purchase…not licensing.

Hmm… Not every Marvel title is great but I feel the writing at Marvel is better. Maybe it’s because I like their characters better. I can’t read any DC book right now. I’m behind on Martian Manhunter, that’s the only DC book I was reading for the past year… I just can’t get behind their characters for the most part. It’s only gotten worse now that Bendis is writing so many of their titles… and Tynion… no thanks!

Fair point, Drog. But I feel like it would be silly of the only big publisher (if Marvel and DC United) to price themselves out of their only market. And as long as Image is around, there will always be ‘competition’, imo. Understanding that Image and hero books are not mutually exclusive to each other.

It is a wholly subjective topic. I can respect your opinion, Poyo.

I, too, have dropped all DC books except for White Knight (almost over) and the Question.

For regular monthly titles I’m down to Venom, Immortal Hulk and Thor (for now).

I’ve really cut back on titles the past few months…going to focus on sales this year, consolidating my collection and acquire some bronze/silver keys.

I have too, but I love reading comics. So, I only read what I like and am enjoying, minus ASM. I will always buy ASM.

I have as well and wanted to focus on older books. It helps with Marvel titles though, I subscribe to Marvel Unlimited for $70 a year… if you’re willing to wait 4-6 months for new books, it’s usually that long they make it to the app and then you can read all you want. It’s great for the books you don’t really want to buy but only want to read.